All PostsOver at The Comics Journal, Kent Worcester offers some commentary on the Abstract Comics discussion from the other week.
I should clarify that the Trondheim piece in question (from La Nouvelle Pornographie) was not necessarily a candidate for the book (I have no idea). It is a book of its own published by L’Association. I’d agree with Worcester that the comic does not fit (Abstract Comics Anthology editor) Andrei Molotiu’s definition of abstract comics. But, it is a form of abstract comics. The art is abstracted to a high degree. Perhaps it is more “abstracted comics.”
Worcester looks at the work of Amy Pryor in the light of comics, noting that: “From the standpoint of Abstract Comics, with its implicit focus with comics that retain panels, grids and sequences, these pieces are most definitely Not Comics…”
I’ll note that not all the works in the anthology use panels or grids, though sequence is a consistent element. I don’t believe image-text relations are a necessary and sufficient element for a definition of comics, but I would love to see a version of the anthology taking a “Harvey-esque” perspective on comics. I’ve done a bunch of abstract comics that would probably fit in that vein:
But… I’m still not sure I’d call Pryor’s works “comics.” They have the same issue I find in some of the anthology’s pieces where I can’t “read” them as comics. I see them as paintings (I use paintings here not necessarily as works made of paint, but as something I would view as I would a painting).
I can’t argue against his point that “context and intentionality” are important in these terminological/definition issues, though I don’t think, again, that they are necessary or sufficient in themselves one way or the other. I have to return back to the idea that “comics” as a definition relies on a grouping of family characteristics (mentioned here and more here) none of which are, in themselves, the single thing that magically transforms an image/text into “comics.”